


Loose lips sink ships

by lheadley



Series: The ship that sailed [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: #slashmadness, M/M, Scott is a Good Friend, Slash tourney, angst (for a bit)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-26
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-10 12:14:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2024760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lheadley/pseuds/lheadley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Voting. Our anniversary. It must be SlashMadness. How could I forget? This is all your fault, with your rock hard abs and your designer stubble and your masculine wiles. You made me forget….”</p><p> </p><p>One year on from "The ship that sailed" and Stiles and Derek are a happy couple. But then The Backlot #slashmadness starts up. Will the ship sink as Stiles rallies forces to the Merthur cause to fight off the Destiel shippers? Will his boyfriend help him?</p><p> </p><p>With best wishes to everyone shipping their own ships in the contest, whatever the ship may be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Werewolf Overboard

Stiles pushed open the front door and raced along the passage as fast as his lacrosse-damaged legs would bear. Rounding the corner to the kitchen (by the expedient of grabbing hold of the patch on the wall that was discoloured by eons of similar abuse and sliding elegantly and efficiently on the parquet) something in his peripheral vision stopped him.

“Dad…. You’re home. Why are you home? I mean, it’s great that you’re home, but is there a problem? That’s brought you here? To our home? Right now? At home?”

Stiles aimed for ‘nonchalance’ by leaning casually against the wall, but owing to the fact that he misjudged the precise position of the wall and had to grab at it in a somewhat frenetic manner in order to steady himself, he missed ‘nonchalance’ by quite a distance and barely managed to retain the impression of sobriety.

“Stiles.” The Sheriff looked up in time to witness the last frantic scrabbling of his son at the drywall, which was enough to give him a prompt to frown in a worried yet knowing manner.

“It’s a quiet day, and I have a mountain of case paperwork to try and write so that it explains things in a somewhat less insane manner than “werewolves exist”, so I came home to finish the files in peace and quiet. And I thought we could have a nice family meal together for a change. Why? Is my being home early a problem?”

“N…n…no.” Stiles’s stutter was just a little too obvious. “I’ll get the takeout menus, shall I? AndbythewayDerekmaybejoiningus.That’sOKright?Great.I’llgetthehealthychinesemenus.” Stiles gave a great heave of breath, having completely exhausted his lung capacity.

“Stiles!” The Sheriff was going for exasperated but stopped somewhere around resigned. “You know the rules. Until you’re eighteen, I need to be around when Derek comes over.”

“Because he’s a guy?”

“Don’t pull that crap with me Stiles. Because he’s older than you, and any shenanigans would be a felony, and I’m a sheriff. It would be the same if he was a woman. And I’m going to stop before you start dumping weird supernatural shit on me about how that might be an option. And I don’t want the deaging argument again either. I need to know you two are behaving until you’re eighteen. Then I don’t need to know anything.”

“Dad, I’m hurt. It’s like you don’t trust me.” Stiles was twisting his hands together in front of him in a manner that had been winsome about fifteen years ago, and now just looked shifty.

“I trust Scott. I trust Derek, or I think I trust Derek. You on the other hand….”

“Dad, how can you say that about your only son? We trust each other. It’s what we do. Like I trust you entirely not to stop by Laurent’s in town and eat jelly donuts because you know jelly donuts are practically poison for a man your age and you wouldn’t want to cause me any pain or anxiety or make me worry about your health.”

The Sheriff seemed to shift fractionally in his chair.

“And it’s because I trust you that I know, _know_ , that the spot of jelly on your tie and the sugar dusting on your shirt front must be because you heroically leapt in front of some jelly donut wielding maniac who was terrorising the fine citizens of Beacon Hills. I’m sure it’ll be on the front page of ‘The Beacon’ tomorrow, with a grateful populace clustering around to thank you and shake your hand from saving them from the peril of jelly donut touting fanatics…”

“Get the door Stiles. And tell Derek he can stay for dinner.” The Sheriff was going for a dignified retreat behind his paperwork.

“I’m still speaking to Laurent tomorrow. I know things about that man. You won’t so much as smell another donut for a fortnight.”

There was an incoherent muttering from behind the case files, and Stiles slid gracefully along the floor (because it was efficient and minimised the wear and tear on lacrosse damaged legs) to open the door.

“Hey, Der.”

Derek leaned in to give Stiles a chaste kiss on the cheek.

“My dad’s home.”

“Why wouldn’t he be home? Those are the rules, right?”

“Yeah, well, I may have been a bit surprised when he showed up at home tonight, is all.”

“Stiles.” Derek looked slightly outraged. “Your dad’s right to set ground rules.” He pushed past Stiles, into the house, but still grabbed his boyfriend’s hand to drag him along.

“Sheriff I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you weren’t planning to be home. I assumed, when Stiles asked me over, that you would be here. I mean, you are here, but Stiles thought you wouldn’t be here, but I assumed you would be here, and if I had known you wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t have come over, but you’re here.”

Stiles looked at Derek with amused toleration. “Why am I dating a babbling loon?”

“Because your idiocy is contagious.” The Sheriff had looked up from his case files. “And don’t worry Derek. I was just saying to Stiles that I think I can trust _you._ ”

“I guess we both need to work on our trust issues, pops.” Stiles grinned at his father, and slowly began dragging Derek towards the stairs.

 

 

Upstairs, Stiles pulled Derek to the bed, with a view to getting at least some first base action. Derek forestalled him.

“So… our anniversary next weekend. What would you like to do?”

Stiles tried to move a hand stealthily under Derek’s Henley under the cover of his reply. “If I don’t sound like a complete dork, could we do our first data again? Not Man of Steel, obviously, but a movie and maybe curly fries. Without the drama of having to involve Scott. Though I guess the voting…”

Stiles stopped, mouth agape.

“Voting. Our anniversary. It must be SlashMadness. How could I forget? This is all your fault, with your rock hard abs and your designer stubble and your masculine wiles. You made me forget….”

Stiles kissed Derek passionately and rushed over to his Samsung tablet.

“Yes, SlashMadness starts tomorrow. I haven’t even started the campaign strategy. Quick, give me your phone, I’ll set it up to speed vote Merthur.”

Derek kept his phone in his pocket. “I’ll hand it over when Pack is out the way.”

Stiles wasn’t paying attention. “Pack, yes, but most of the pack are set up from last year but I didn’t set you up. And those Destiel shippers are so organised. I bet they haven’t been distracted by insanely hot boyfriends.”

Derek demurred. “No, not ‘pack’. Pacey and Jack. Pack. My Dawson’s Creek OTP. Once they’re out the running, as no doubt they will be after about thirty seconds, I’ll let you set me up for Merthur.”

Stiles stared at his boyfriend, his Samsung tablet falling from his nerveless fingers.

“But… Merthur. The Destiel shippers. Do you really want that creaking, rotting hulk of a ship to defeat something as perfect as Merthur? Merthur is… it’s just…You need to vote Merthur right from the start. We can’t take any chances.” Stiles made grabbing motions towards the pocket where Derek’s phone was.

“Stiles.” Derek’s tone had a slight edge to it. “Of course I’ll vote Merthur, you know I will. I get that it’s important to you.” A sound like one of Chris Argent’s smaller bombs being detonated echoed around the room. Stiles had snorted in a way that seemed to meld anger, disgust and a certain twist of sarcasm. “But Pack matters to me. And I know it doesn’t matter to anyone else these days, but I have to support them.”

“You… you… “ Stiles was barely able to structure a sentence. “If you don’t ship Merthur, you don’t understand me. You don’t get… Why do you even bother coming over here?”

“I’m beginning to ask myself that question.” Derek was getting more worked up. “If you can’t understand why Pack matters, why do you bother dating me?”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t bother dating you.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Stiles turned to retrieve his Samsung tablet from where it had fallen to the floor, blinking furiously to try to clear the blurriness of his vision. He breathed in, and turned around with the intention of offering a compromise – one vote in three for Pack or something. Derek wasn’t there. The house suddenly shook with the force of an alpha werewolf slamming the front door closed on his way out.


	2. Launch the lifeboat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Stiles, our generation don’t judge people by appearance or religion or race or sexual orientation or any of that crap because we don’t see people in those terms. Half our friends are Avatars and pseudonyms.” Stiles took a moment to marvel at the benefits SAT study could bring to bear on vocabulary. Scott had barely stuttered over ‘pseudonym’. “We judge people for who they are as people, as personalities, because we know that the image is just a front, a fackaid.”
> 
> “Façade” Stiles said quietly.

Stiles was sat with his head resting on his desk, listlessly prodding at his Samsung tablet in order to vote in the Backlot’s slashmadness contest. Merthur was in front, by a formidable margin, but Stiles was not feeling any better. The dramatic nature of the inevitable Merthur victory in the first round just made his argument with Derek seem futile. Except it wasn’t futile. If Derek couldn’t see why it was so important to ship Merthur, there was no future for them.

A thunderous pounding on the stairs told him Scott was making his way upstairs with his characteristic subtlety. Stiles’s bedroom door was flung open, and all of a sudden Stiles was enveloped in a hug so tight he could not see to vote on his Samsung. Something in Stiles seemed to break, and he began whimpering against Scott’s shoulder.

“Dude, what happened? Your tumblr posts on slashmadness have been awful. Even Jackson noticed. And when I tried to call Derek…”

Stiles sat up suddenly at that, aware as he did so of a crick in his neck from having lain in a heap of misery for so long. “You called Derek? What did he say?”

“Nothing. I mean, I didn’t get him. When I called his phone I got Peter – he said Derek was down the gym.”

“Figures.” Stiles’s felt a weird sinking feeling in his stomach – he knew he was vindicated by this, but he didn’t want to be vindicated. “As soon as we break up he heads out to the gym to troll for someone more to his taste. Some muscle bound hunk with no witty comebacks, who’ll just bat their eyelids at him and turn out to be some kind of homicidal monster.”

“You… you broke up?” Scott sounded incredulous, and almost personally hurt by the news.

“He won’t ship Merthur. He said he was going to ship Pack” Scott looked confused, or maybe his face had just fallen into repose. “Pack. Pacey and Jack. From Dawson’s Creek.”

“Right.”

“He wouldn’t vote for Merthur before Pack was out of the running. And I was going to offer a compromise and everything. But he just stormed off slamming the door, saying he couldn’t understand why he had ever bothered with me, and he wasn’t interested in me.”

There was a certain amount of poetic license in Stiles’s interpretation of events, but he wanted to wallow in Scott’s sympathy. And perhaps one of those neck rubs Scott did, because a neck rub from Scott was always awesome. But the sympathy did not seem to be too forthcoming, and there was not so much as a hint of a neck rub.

Scott frowned a little. “I know Stiles. But…it’s just…”

“Scott McCall if you dare, if you _dare_ say ‘it’s just a TV show’ I swear I will break this chair over your head so fast you’ll think I was a newbie beta. Don’t you dare tell me it’s just a TV show.”

Scott winced a little, seemingly remembering old wounds, before rushing to reassure.

“Bro, I would never say that. I know how much Merthur means to you.”

“It’s…” Stiles’s anger had faded rapidly. “It’s just that… Merthur is me. I mean, it’s me and Derek. It’s what gave me hope. I never told you because you had stuff going on being bitten and then with Allison and then being an alpha and everything, but I had a crush on Derek for the longest time and…”

Stiles stopped, his train of thought arrested by the smug half smile on Scott’s face.

“You knew I had a crush on Derek? How could you know? Oh, God, did Derek know? Is it like a werewolf thing? Werewolves can smell when you have a crush?”

“Dude, I knew because you’re my brother. And I guessed you’d tell me when you were ready. And Derek soooo didn’t know. The hours I had to listen to him mooning over you, asking questions about you while trying to be discreet about his feelings…”

Stiles looked at little interested at this revelation, before remembering that he didn’t care about Derek. He gestured dismissively, knocking his bedside clock over in the process.

“Whatever. Well, while I had the crush Merthur gave me hope. It was all about how an alpha male, a proper alpha male, could fall for a skinny, defenceless geek whose only contribution was research. It was Derek and me, one hundred percent. If Merthur could happen, then Derek and I could happen.”

“But you and Derek have happened”. Scott’s tone was going for reasonable and reassuring. Stiles wasn’t fooled. He heard Scott using that tone with dogs at Deaton’s, right before he jammed a six inch long needle into them.

“But Derek doesn’t ship Merthur, and won’t ship Merthur, which means he doesn’t think it is believable, and it means he doesn’t think _we_ are believable. He was just, I don’t know, messing with me for some weird, twisted reason. Perhaps he’s not even bi. I bet that’s it. He’s some strange straight who gets his kicks by…” Stiles broke off, biting his lip malevolently and breathing hard through his nose.

Scott was back on the road to reconciliation.

“Stiles, I think you’re missing the point. I don’t think Derek’s anti-Merthur, it’s just that the Jack and Pacey thing is a really big deal for him. And I think I get why.”

Stiles was still malevolently chewing at his lip, which prevented a witty comeback. Which was just as well, as he had no witty comeback. Scott adopted the slightly constipated expression that always signalled deep thought.

“I mean, Derek’s a different generation to us.”

Stiles retaliated quickly. This was a well-rehearsed line. “He’s only a few years older than we are.”

“Yes, I know, and you are way more mature than he is most of the time. But…” More constipation. “His generation grew up in a different environment, a more prejudiced world than we grew up in. It’s like…”

Stiles repressed a smile. Scott’s face when he solved a problem was just like a cartoon character with the lightbulb going on above their head.

“…you remember when we were in kindergarten and that older bully came over and started calling me names because I’m Latino? And you kicked him in the shins and tried to arrest him?”

Stiles was not sure where this particular argument was going, but he nodded. “Of course I tried to arrest him. He made you cry. That should carry three to five years jail time.”

Scott gave Stiles a quick bro hug. “But when my mom explained to you what he had been calling me and why it had upset me, you couldn’t understand why it made a difference. You kept asking her why it mattered where I came from, as long as I was in Beacon Hills now. You couldn’t understand the prejudice.”

“I never get haters.” Stiles shrugged.

“Or think about your friends on Tumblr and AO3. Do you know whether Merlinsbeard is a girl or a boy?”

“No. But they’re great. It doesn’t matter who they are.”

“Exactly.” Scott was on a roll. “What race is Lancesalot? Is Pendragonsheir straight or gay? Or bi or trans? Where does TheDSharman come from?”

Stiles interrupted. “I think TheD is British. He or she spells things Britishly.”

“Does it matter? Does any of it matter?”

“Of course not.” Stiles was indignant. “They’re all my friends. And they’re all really cool people. I don’t need to know any of that stuff to know I like them. I don’t care about anything else, I just care that they’re nice people who are interested in what I'm interested in and who I can have a conversation with.”

“Exactly.” Scott was triumphant, and leaned back. Stiles eyed him with a bemused expression on his face. Scott sighed.

“Stiles, our generation don’t judge people by appearance or religion or race or sexual orientation or any of that crap because we don’t see people in those terms. Half our friends are Avatars and pseudonyms.” Stiles took a moment to marvel at the benefits SAT study could bring to bear on vocabulary. Scott had barely stuttered over ‘pseudonym’. “We judge people for who they are as people, as personalities, because we know that the image is just a front, a fackaid.”

“Façade” Stiles said quietly.

“Whatever. But Derek – Derek was in high school before that all came along. Derek’s not the Tumblr generation. He had Facebook, maybe, and texting, but Facebook and texting don’t let you hide behind an Avatar. People still have to know you, and they will judge on how you look and what you do. Derek grew up in a world where prejudice was still part of everyday life, particularly if you were bi or gay or whatever you guys are. Derek grew up trying to hide who he was – twice over. Once for being a werewolf, and once for liking men.”

Stiles let out a small “huh.”

“So I think watching reruns of Dawson’s Creek was a really big deal for Derek when he was growing up. Dawson’s Creek showed him that it was OK to be who you are, and that’s why Jack and Pacey are so important to him.”

“But he should have realised what Merthur means to us.” Stiles was trying to work himself up into a fury again. “He should have known. He’s all brooding and muscles and action and whooshing around like a Prince, and I’m just cowering on the floor waiting for him to make an alpha roar. If he doesn’t believe Arthur can love Merlin, he can’t believe that big, alpha Prince Derek can love me.”

“I think you’re wrong Stiles.” Scott was rubbing at Stiles’s neck and shoulders now, and Stiles leaned back into the motion indulgently, letting the tension and emotion drain from him. “Why don’t you sleep on it for a while? I’ll stay and vote on your phone as well as mine. Merthur’s doing fine.”

Stiles let himself be pushed down onto his bed, having first double and triple checked that Scott was set up for a solid block of Merthur voting.

“Stiles?”

Stiles gave a drowsy murmur from his prone position, faceplanted on the bed.

“I get why you ship Merthur, I really do. But you view it all wrong. You’re not a skinny, defenceless warlock. From the day you kicked that bully and tried to arrest him, you’ve been _my_ knight in shining armour.”


	3. A fleet of ships

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Merlin, your hose.”
> 
> Scott quickly dropped his hands to cover his groin area.
> 
> Stiles stifled a grin, because after Derek had faithlessly broken his heart he could never smile again. He quickly sought to clarify. “No, your hose. Your trouser things. They are not quite right – a bit too tight – but the whole effect is. You’re Merlin.”

Stiles was sitting at his desk, listlessly voting on his Samsung tablet. He’d been frozen out the previous evening, no doubt as part of some dastardly Destiel plot to prevent Merthur from taking the crown. He had used the downtime to have a frank conversation with his dad about prejudice in a world without Tumblr. His dad’s comments about the prejudice he had encountered on the job, and even the prejudice he had engaged in himself when he was younger hadn’t helped Stiles’s emotions about his row with Derek. Even the hugging out after the conversation with his dad hadn’t helped. Stiles was beginning to think that Scott may have had a point, and that he, Stiles, was being prejudiced about Derek’s adamant shipping of Pacey and Jack.

There was a muted scrambling sound from outside his bedroom door. Stiles half lifted his head from where it rested on his desk top, with a slight tacky unsticking sort of a sound as he peeled himself away. That might be the consequence of the Coke he had spilled the previous evening – after three glasses and an attempt to drown his sorrows without ready access to alcohol. He heard muffled sounds of an argument being conducted in whispers.

“Go on!”. Allison’s voice, which was a little weird. Allison should be at home voting, or firing arrows into things, or something.

“But…”

“Scott McCall, this was your plan in the first place.” Lydia’s voice. Stiles let his head loll back onto the desk as he voted again, but his forehead creased slightly in confusion. Lydia almost never came over. Lydia summoned, as befitted the queen she was, and Stiles made his way cautiously into the presence. Lydia just did not come to him.

“There’s a reason I don’t make the plans. Stiles makes the plans. Or you make the plans. I don’t make plans because my plans are stupid.”

“Scott.” Allison’s voice had taken on a wheedling, persuasive quality. “No one knows Stiles like you know Stiles. This _will_ work.”

The door to Stiles’s room opened with an abrupt motion, and Scott stumbled in looking for all the world like an alpha werewolf who had just received a hearty shove in the small of the back from the unseen hands of a hunter and a banshee.

Stiles was about to comment on the general weirdness of the situation, when his eye’s registered the sight before him. Scrambling up from the floor, Scott was clad in…

“MERLIN. You… You… You’re doing cosplay.”

Stiles was astounded. He had got Scott to do LARPing, but never had he got him to don a proper Merlin costume. And now, even his hair was brushed forward in the correct style. Everything about it was an exact replica, except one thing.

“Merlin, your hose.”

Scott quickly dropped his hands to cover his groin area.

Stiles stifled a grin, because after Derek had faithlessly broken his heart he could never smile again. He quickly sought to clarify. “No, your hose. Your trouser things. They are not quite right – a bit too tight – but the whole effect is. You’re Merlin.”

Scott relaxed a little and made a clumsy bow. “My liege. I thought that we could have a day’s entertainment, if you would agree, in exchange, that I get to choose the DVDs this evening without any Royal backchat or evasion?”

Stiles’s eyes narrowed. There was a catch here, it was obvious. Scott was never that good at deception, and could never deceive Stiles. But a whole day of cosplay with Scott as Merlin, there couldn’t be anything that Scott could inflict that would outweigh that.

“I get to vote, regardless?”

“Of course, bro. I mean, of course Arthur. I would never stop that.”

Stiles’s face lit up. “Deal. We could…”

Scott interrupted. “I have a plan for the afternoon’s entertainment, my liege. If you would perhaps consider changing out of your night attire, into something suitable for outdoor wear? It’s three in the afternoon, after all.”

Stiles was astounded. Scott was preparing to go outside as Merlin? This was simply too good to be true. He tore towards the bathroom, pausing only to throw his Samsung onto the bed with a shouted order to his new servant. “Vote while I’m getting ready Merlin.”

 

 

It was evening before Stiles stumbled up the steps to his house, Scott limping along in his wake carrying two pizza boxes. Scott had gotten a friend of Deaton to help with the cosplay – and they had an afternoon of horse riding around the Beacon Hills Preserve. Stiles hadn’t thought he would be able of enjoying himself so much. Deaton’s friend had been cool, and very supportive of the cosplay. Scott’s horse had been terrified, which must have been a reaction to the werewolf thing. The horse had kept trying to shy Scott off his back – which had been hilarious, and also very in keeping with the whole cosplay situation. Stiles had discovered hidden equestrian talents. Deaton’s friend had suggested he come back and try something more challenging than trekking.

“Dude, that was awesome”. Stiles felt he should break character now they were back at home for an evening of DVDs and pizza and voting, and perhaps some sobbing into his pillow once Scott had gone. “We gotta do that again.”

Scott groaned theatrically as he carefully placed the pizzas on the table before slumping onto the rug. “Your horse wasn’t trying to kill you.”

“I know right? That’s what made it so great. So what do you want to watch? I could get Star Wars.”

Stiles’s attempt at subtly did not seem to be working, and it was perhaps a little unfair to try and slip a Star Wars in when Scott was still clearly saddle sore.

“We had a deal, bro.” Scott levered himself off the floor with some difficulty, and pushed his way to the television, before moving to clump next to Stile on the couch. He booted up the DVD with the remote while grabbing for pizza with the other hand.

‘Sixpence none the richer’ started playing in the background. Stiles looked confused, until the titles suddenly appeared.

“Dude, you are _not_ making me watch ‘Dawson’s Creek’? That is so not…”

“You promised Stiles. A day of cosplay, I get to choose and no backchat. Haven’t you ever watched Dawson’s?”

Stiles slumped back into the sofa cushions, glaring mulishly. “No. I caught an episode one time where there was a dude who looked just like a young Peter. It was creepy. I could never watch it after that.”

“Just two episodes”. Scott’s voice was determined. “’To be or not to be’ and ‘That is the question’. And then you can watch what you want, or… whatever.”

Stiles glowered a bit more, before reaching for the pizza.

 

 

An hour and a half later and Stiles was sobbing uncontrollably into Scott’s shoulder as the closing credits rolled on the television. Incoherent half sentences were coming out between chocked, heaving breaths.

“And Jack… coming out… his dad… and Pacey… and…”

Any semblance of coherence was lost for a minute or two, before Stiles suddenly sat up?

“Derek. I have to see Derek. Now. Where are Roscoe’s keys? I need to see Derek.”

Scott patted Stiles on the shoulder. Stiles wiped his eyes, then his nose, on the hem of Scott’s shirt. “Now, Scott. Where did you put the keys?”

Scott was still staring with resignation at the hem of his shirt. He gave a shrug, and turned to look at Stiles.”

“You’re not driving anywhere like that. I’ll give you a lift on the bike. Go wash your face and I’ll take you over to the loft.”

 

 

Derek opened his door to Stiles’s frantic pounding, and stared in shock. The shock quickly gave way to a contrived blankness, before he seemed to notice Stiles’s red eyes. Derek stepped forward, reaching out in concern, to be met by Stiles throwing his arms around Derek’s neck.

The gesture was no doubt meant to be romantic, but the romance was dulled by the fact that Stiles had forgotten he was still carrying Scott’s spare helmet (clearly labelled “This is not Scott’s spare helmet this is Stiles’s helmet. Only Stiles gets to ride Scott’s bike”). There was a clunking sound as the helmet bounced off the back of Derek’s head.

“I’m so, so sorry.” Stiles was talking rapidly. “Not about the helmet. Well, yes, about the helmet, but not really about the helmet. I’m sorry about being so horrible to you about Pack. I get why you ship them, I just didn’t realise until Scott made me see that…”

Stiles’s explanations were cut off abruptly as Derek (eyes still watering from the blow to the head) closed his mouth over Stiles’s.

After a long moment, they broke apart. Stiles carried on as if there had been no interruption. “I mean, I didn’t really understand what it was like with the prejudice and everything, but I can see why ‘Dawson’s Creek’ was such a positive message for you, and how it helped you realise that you could be who you wanted to be, and why it was so important and mmmph…”

Derek had placed a finger over Stiles’s mouth, and slowly pulled him into the loft towards the couch.

“That’s not why… I mean, yes Pack is important to me because of all of that, but it’s not the reason I ship it so hard. Isn’t it obvious? Pacey, the sassy, cute, sarcastic son of a sheriff? Jack the awkward loner with a majorly dysfunctional family? I shop Pack because it’s us. If Pack is possible, then we’re possible.

Stiles’s mouth dropped open. He gulped and hurried to shut it. “But… but… that’s why Merthur is so great. The alpha male with the great destiny, and the skinny defenceless researcher who helps him. Merthur is us. Are you saying we ship our ships for the same reason?”

Derek didn’t answer, unless pushing Stiles back against the sofa cushions counts as an answer.

When there was a pause in proceedings, Stiles pushed himself back into a seated position, one hand resting none-too-casually on Derek’s abs. “I guess people ship different ships because of what the ship means to them. Maybe there are some Destiel shippers out there who are just like us, shipping Destiel because it keeps alive their hopes of a relationship. Huh.” Stiles snuggled a little closer to Derek. “Maybe there is even some good in Destiel. Maybe. Perhaps Merthur shippers and Destiel shippers should join forces and try and find some common ground or something. Work for the greater good, spreading a message of tolerance and anti-prejudice. With Pack shippers too, of course.”

“Both of us?” Derek sounded a little rueful.

There was a thump from the door, and Scott came in – one hand theatrically over his eyes.

“Guys, are you decent? Is everything cool? I wanted to check…”. Scott half lowered his hand.

“What are you wearing?” The question exploded out of Derek.

Stiles slapped him. “He is cosplaying. And don’t jeer. I’m going to get you into chainmail before this year’s out.” Stiles manoeuvred himself close for another kiss.

“Everything OK?”. Scott breathed a sigh of relief. “You guys just need to be together, and stop being idiots. You’re meant to be. It’s inevitable. It took you long enough to realise it, so stop messing about and forcing me to go about in public in Allison’s old leggings.” Scott broke off, as Stiles and Derek appeared oblivious to his presence.

“Ahhhh.” Scott looked down with a soppy expression. “I’ll vote Merthur, of course, but my favourite ship is you guys.” Scott edged towards the door. “Consider me the captain of the good ship Sterek.”

“Diles”. Stiles’s voice was muffled but insistent. “Call us Diles.”

 


End file.
